In Medias Res
by Mackity Blackwood
Summary: In the middle of things indeed. James is having a really, phenomenally bad day. Rating for body horror elements, substance abuse mention, and some cussin'. Cover is FO3 concept art by the late, great Adam Adamowicz.


What in God's name is happening? Everything hurts – like acid coursing under my skin. I can't see. Where am I? What's happened!?

I grit my teeth and order myself to breathe. Slow down. Think. What's the last thing I remember?

A face. My daughter's face. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, her hand pressed to the glass, mirroring mine. That scream on her lips shoots electricity down my spine. Oh God, sweetheart, what have I done? What did I do to hurt you? Hurt. Pain. So much pain, and a bubbling sickness in my belly.

Radiation. The reactor.

That snaps the pieces into place. I was at Project Purity. The Enclave invaded just as we were finishing preparations to activate the Purifier. Colonel Autumn killed Janice to coerce me into helping him pervert the Project for his superiors' warped needs. I overloaded the reactor. He was all too ready to kill again - I was the only one left in there besides Autumn and his flunkies. If I had to incur the wrath of thousands of rads so that he could not succeed, then it was worthwhile. He is certainly dead. No one could survive that.

. . . But what does that make me? The dead don't feel pain. Not like this. Not unless my faith was _sorely_ misplaced in the God in whom I believe.

My head is swimming. Bile burns my throat and my skin prickles and throbs with every heartbeat. Surely I couldn't feel this if I were dead. The antiseptic reek of recently-cleaned surgical steel greets my nose like an old friend, followed soon after by the copper-bitter stench of blood and the rancid fetor of pus. Is this a clinic? Forcing my eyes open a crack, I peer out around me.

Light. _Ungodly_ light. Searing. I can't see through it at all. My eyes squeeze shut, and I can't bear to open them again, the pain of that brightness a palpable, lingering ring in my brain.

Someone speaks, just to my right. I don't know the voice. "Fascinating – he seems to be conscious of his surroundings. I wonder if he's aware enough to respond."

There's another voice, to my left. "If he is, then sedate him, for fuck's sake. We're bound to lose him again if he's awake for the next round of treatment."

The first voice now. "Such a shame. Quite a lot still to be documented of cases like this."

"This isn't up for discussion. Administer him Med-X _immediately_ or you will be removed from the operation."

No. No, don't! Not again – I need to know where I am! Where my daughter is! I try to voice my protest, but it won't come. There's a rush, and I'm spinning, tumbling, falling.

I can see Catherine's smiling face. Our child is in my arms, and the love of my life is radiant with pride. This tiny life we've waited so long to see, for whom we've planned for so long, wailing her first breaths, healthy and whole. She is so beautiful. Catherine, she has your blue eyes. And she certainly didn't get that round button nose from her father.

"J-James?" Catherine? "James, something's—" Catherine! She's going into cardiac arrest. I can't lose her. Get the baby to safety. Madison takes her. I start CPR. You can't go, Catherine. One one-thousand. You can't. The Project still isn't finished. Two one-thousand. It could never work without you there! Come on, come on! Three one-thousand. You have to stay with me and help me raise our girl! She's going to grow up so fast and I _need_ you here, Catherine!

The droning screech of the heart monitor flatlining blends with the wailing of my infant daughter and the intangible ringing of my horror, diffusing without warning into some distorted noise filling my ears. "Where am I?"

No response. Machinery whirrs, pings, chirps, and whistles, but no human voice returns my query. That old familiar taste of blood, like molten copper, chases between my teeth, and I gag swallowing it down. Forcing my eyes open again, I turn my head abruptly to the right, away from the light streaking down from above like spearheads to my brain, though the motion sends jolts of agony into my neck and straight through to my heels. There's something wrong. Some long, snaking shape trailing up from my arm. I claw my way through the pain and dizziness to focus on it.

A glint of metal betrays a needle. The snake resolves into a tube, flooded with some green fluid. It's in my arm. Something is in my arm, some unknown chem. My arm . . . good _God_.

My arm is enormous. The bicep is easily the size of my head. The skin is yellowed and cracked like the pages of some ancient tome, or the bottom of a dried Mojave riverbed. My mouth goes just as dry, a rush of lightheaded vertigo assaulting my limited senses. I recognize the symptoms – the beginnings of the same mutation that the Super Mutants have undergone. This tube must be full of that FEV slop. I'm being . . . I dare not even think what's happened to me already, never mind how long I've been here. Have to get the needle out. Despite the shooting pain of lifting my left arm, I clench my jaw and force the muscles to move, reaching over a hideously distended chest, particularly difficult across the right pectoral. It's a small blessing that my left side seems largely unaffected by the changes, at least for now.

A hand grasps my wrist and wrenches it back; I'm too weak and too much in pain to fight back, and the unknown person makes a condescending _tsk_ sound as they strap my hand to the bed in which I'm lying. "Now, now, Doctor, we can't have you doing that." It's the first voice, the one that took such an interest in my condition. As I squint against the light above me – it appears to be a surgery lamp – I can see a lean man's face behind the orange helmet of a sterile, white environmental suit. "You're liable to hurt yourself."

"Where . . . am . . . I?" The words struggle to escape me, clawing at my throat in ways I didn't expect, my voice more gravelly than the shale-strewn wastes. God, it _hurts_ to speak. Is this why Super Mutants always sound enraged, because their every syllable must be forced through the ruined shambles of a larynx?

"Why, you're safe, of course," the man insists soothingly as he goes to strap down my right arm as well. The oil in his voice is enough to make my teeth itch. "We've been taking very good care of you since that minor incident at the Jefferson Memorial."

My fists clench as I struggle against the clinging remnants of the Med-X working through my system towards full consciousness. "What . . . have you d-done?"

"Saved your life, _obviously_."

The level of contempt I'm developing for this man is threatening to overwhelm my capacity for civil discourse. "Why?"

I can almost see the smirk behind that glaringly orange face shield, and I wonder if it's indicative of my mutations' progress that my first instinct is to punch him in that smug gob of his. "Because you still have value to the Enclave. Your little stunt in the reactor the other week may have set us back somewhat, but there are top-tier technicians at the Memorial as we speak rectifying the wreckage you left behind and improving on the extant design. All we need is your expertise to help us smooth out the wrinkles."

I latch onto every detail he drops, forcing myself to process each one and apply it towards forming a framework of where in time and space I am. If I'm under direct supervision of the Enclave, then chances are good I've been brought to Raven Rock. They wouldn't risk a high-priority asset - as they seem to regard me - being further damaged or taken from one of their outposts. Given the thrown-away remark about the Purifier being taken "the other week," I can also conclude I've been here at least one full week, if not longer, but probably not yet a month. There's no telling how much of that time I spent either dead or on the verge of death before I came to not long ago, and I don't particularly relish the prospect of finding out. The thought gives me a cold shudder.

Finally, as he's moving about with a clipboard checking the monitors tracking my vital signs, I work up the strength to state, "I won't help." The sound is a hideous growl, and I can't help but wince at it.

The lab lackey chuckles without turning to face me. "You won't have much of a choice in the matter, I'm afraid. Assuming this procedure goes off without any further setbacks, we should have that brilliant mind of yours hard at work for Colonel Autumn inside of a week, especially with the prize we've recovered from Vault 87."

"Autumn?!" It couldn't be possible. Could it? Granted, I'd survived, but surely all that effort hadn't simply come to naught!

"Oh yes! He was lucky, you see – he'd been preparing for a number of diverse outcomes going into that particular mission. Even commissioned one or two 'last resort' chems for a few likely scenarios. It's just astounding what one can synthesize in a lab with sufficient resources and knowledge; in the case of the sample he used after your attempted murder-suicide, we even managed to outdo the performance of Rad-Away! He was in recovery for a time, of course, but he's back in the trenches already, as expected."

I failed. Autumn survived the reactor, just as I did, and evidently without the side-effects now plaguing me. I couldn't stop him. I failed. The Purifier is in Enclave control, their command structure is intact, and here I am, half a monster strapped to a gurney with poison twisting my genes into knots.

Taking my silence as response enough, the technician makes a last scribble on the clipboard before hanging it on the hook at the foot of the bed. "Good day, Doctor," he quips as he exits, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Shame and regret bubble in my stomach, a none-too-refreshing departure from the radiation sickness wracking my frame as the course of FEV marches on from intravenous tube to vein to my shrieking cells. Impossible weight compounds on my limbs and chest, migraine beating a merciless tattoo against the inside of my skull, and I squeeze my eyes shut once more. Even the throbbing ache of my body, down to my fingernails and into my very marrow, can't compete with the abysmal wretchedness I feel as I think back over the path that led me here.

Another failure. First all the delays and pitfalls with Project Purity. Then my poor Catherine. Choosing to abandon the Project for that damnable Vault, Alphonse's mad dystopia, to which I turned a blind eye. Leaving not only poor Jonas, but my own daughter there, thinking they would be safe. Seeking out Braun and becoming a victim to his crazed simulation. My courageous, foolhardy baby girl forced to track me down when my ambition blinded me to all else. And now this.

Did she survive after I overloaded the reactor? Did she escape? Or was she killed along with everyone else I persuaded to help with my foolish quest? Madison, Janice, Daniel, and all the others?

So many dead. So many more still to die. My poor daughter. So young. She was all I had left. Idiot! I should never have left that Vault. Suffocating fascism and petty squabbles would have been a thousand times preferable to this hell I've wrought. Can nothing I do go right?

I don't know how long I've been here, too weak and too gutted to even struggle against the straps on my wrists. Have I slept? Have I merely laid here, stewing in my guilt? I can't tell. Moments later, however, I notice what shook me from my stupor in the first place - a great, thunderous rattle rising from the bowels of the complex, which I can feel in my joints as they vibrate against the bed. Earthquake? I should be so lucky. Perhaps this poisoned earth will succeed where I didn't and snuff me out along with my captors.

Within minutes, sirens begin to scream, lights flashing and alarms blaring as soldiers in power armor charge past the window looking out from my claustrophobic operating room onto a rail-guarded walkway, the armored men disappearing down a flight of steps I can't see at this angle. Perhaps not an earthquake. Then what? An attack? Who would make an assault on a mountain-bound fortress such as this? The Brotherhood? Why in God's name would they choose _now_ , of all times, to back up all their endless bragging and execute a strike? Surely not to rescue me; I must be presumed dead to the wider world.

Confusion and chaos reign for intolerable eons condensed into crawling seconds, the lights and noise only serving to compound the tremendous thrumming in my skull, until all I wish is to have my hands free to plug my ears. Shutting my eyes doesn't help, as it only amplifies the wailing sirens. The acrid reek of plasma and laser weapon discharge seeps into the room, along with the pungent burn of grenade-grade gunpowder. Who in their right mind could give the Enclave such a fight that they would pull out all stops like this?

Then I see her, just over the hulk that is my right arm. Just a moment, a flash of long hair and a blue Vault suit. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? With God knows what dripping into my bloodstream, it wouldn't be too surprising. But no. There she is again. Coming up the stairs. She has a plasma rifle in her hands, firing down at enemies on the level below as she ascends the stairway.

She's here. She's ALIVE. But she may not see me. There are so many ways we could simply miss each other here. I can't lose her. Not again. Please, dear God, not again! Panic and desperation lend me strength as I strain against the straps in earnest. They hold fast, but I can feel the barest give in the rivets pinning them to the gurney, along with the biting pinch of the straps against my cracked and jaundiced skin. Hauling upon it again and again, I feel muscles too large and too warped bunching against my bonds, until at last the strap breaks completely, one hand freed.

I see her beginning to pass my window. Please, please, not yet! Stay! I think I call to her, but I can't hear the words over the sirens and my thundering pulse. Scrambling for another solution, I fling my fist at the window, producing not only a satisfying thunk, but also a small, spiderwebbing crack. A splash of red against the pane and a gnawing pain at the heel of my palm proves the gambit wasn't without cost, but it pays off. She stops short and looks in towards me, her face flushed in the midst of her fight, though it grows pale in horror as it sees my twisted form.

Her eyes look right into mine, and, to my misery and dismay, she doesn't know me. Tears cloud my vision, but I blink them away, terrified that I may lose sight of her for good. Lifting my freed hand again, I place that crumpled, malformed palm imploringly against the glass, desperately locking my gaze with hers.

All at once, recognition flares in her eyes like a firework, and she visibly gasps. I barely see her rush to the door, a few feet to my left, invisible for a few minutes until the encrypted lock chimes and the portal slides open. She stumbles in and staggers to a stop at arm's length from the gurney. I can feel her looking me over, though she keeps returning to my eyes, and I lift up a silent prayer of thanks that whatever the FEV has done to me didn't finish its work.

We stay there, frozen, silent, the monumental tragedy and good fortune of our position swelling around us in that tiny room. Eventually, with immense effort, I manage to croak, "Honey . . . You're alive!"

She nods dumbly, eyes swimming in unshed tears. "Yeah, Dad." The sound of her voice pierces like a purifying dagger, making me tremble. A disbelieving smile tugs at her lips. "And . . . so are you."

I can't help a chuckle, though it sounds like no such thing, with the state of my throat. "You could say that."

For a few more moments, we remain as statues, until she reaches out and gently begins to work loose the fastenings of my left arm's strap, the brush of her hand against my mostly-unmutated skin cementing the reality of the vision before me. Once she has it freed, she carefully lifts the smaller hand to her cheek, pressing it there. I feel her shaking, barely containing herself behind a cracking facade. At so short a distance, I can smell the subtle perfume of her hair, along with the more potent tang of scotch, and all at once, my heart clenches. So young, and already she's had to mourn her father; apparently she handled it as well as I handled her mother's death. Oh, sweetheart. . .

Even though it hurts just as badly as every other motion in this broken body, I need not think about what to do, brushing my thumb against her cheekbone, wiping away the tear that's rolled down to meet it.

She sobs once and crumples against my side, and I find myself joining her, my chest heaving with wracking spasms as I wrap my mismatched arms around my only, dearest, darling daughter and hold her close, all else forgotten.


End file.
